Actor and screenwriter Seth Rogen is set to write a film adaptation of Console Wars, an upcoming book that details how Nintendo and Sega went head-to-head in a power-play for the top spot during the video game explosion of the 1990s.

Rogen will also co-direct the project with Evan Goldberg, with whom he previously paired to write blockbuster films Superbad, Knocked Up, and This Is the End. Other parties signed up include Moneyball producer Scott Rudin and Blake J. Harris, the author of Console Wars, who will serve as executive producer on the film. Sony Pictures is spearheading the film's production and development.

The film narrative will focus on how Sega, then only a small company, took on Nintendo and eventually changed video gaming (and history) forever. It will also follow Sega's former CEO Tom Kalinske and how he transformed gaming into a global industry that last year recorded sales of $60 billion.

"His unconventional tactics, combined with the blood, sweat and bold ideas of his renegade employees, transformed Sega and eventually led to a ruthless David-and-Goliath showdown with rival Nintendo," says publisher HarperCollins. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred conflict that pitted brother against brother, kid against adult, Sonic against Mario, and the US against Japan."

The show-business dailyVariety says Console War will be Harris's literary debut, and will come with a prologue by Goldberg and Rogen. HarperCollins will release it in the US on 13 May. Independent British publisher Atlantic Books has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights and plans to release Console Wars - which features more than 200 insider interviews - in August 2014.